Nothing To Lose But Your Head
by hirwin1
Summary: AU: Warning-Talk of suicide and mental illness. Beca is back living at home after getting out of a mental health facility. What happens when she runs into the girl she has been in love with since she was six, who happens to be her sisters best friend and maid of honor?
1. Chapter 1

"Joanna, down at the pharmacy, said she overdosed on Tylenol but half the bottle fell down the drain. She was so broke, she couldn't even go buy more." The two ladies were conversing over the potatoes in Busbee's Grocers. They weren't the first to come up with wildly, hyperbolic theories on how the youngest of the Mitchell children, the prodigal child, returned home after a 6 week stint in the hospital mental ward.

"Well, Christine's daughter, who lived in her dorm, told her that the she cut her wrists. The blood pool they found in her room was so big there couldn't get it out of the carpet," said Ms. Mackinzie, the redhead who worked at Sweet D's hair supply on Mercer Street.

"I bet she stuck her head in the oven like Sylvia Plath" a new voice said. Both women had failed to notice the young twenty year old in question, who was inspecting the Vidalia onions on the other side of the vegetable display. "Or maybe I did it like Virginia Woolf and stuck rocks in my pocket so I could drown myself in a lake… Ladies, I would love to stay and speculate, but my lunch break is almost over."

The younger woman abandoned her inspection of the onions leaving the other women with their embarrassed shock. Ms. Mackinzie shook her head and tutted:

"She's still got that smart mouth on her."

When Beca entered the shop, the boys had "Friday I'm in love" playing over the speakers again. She inwardly rolled her eyes at her short friend rearranging the used records section next to the counter.

"Really, Benji…The ."

"Its my day, I get to choose the music. On Tuesday, you can get back to that depressing noise you call music," he said without looking up from his rummaging. "Besides who doesn't like The Cure," he asked as he finally turned around adjusting his thick, black framed glasses.

"Its not noise its post-punk and indie." She put her bag back behind the counter, and turned to Benji once again. "Besides, my dad hates The Cure too."

"That doesn't count," he said.

"How was the trip to Busbee's?" Jesse said as he came in from the stock room carrying a load of CDs.

"Eh," I shrugged as she hiked herself on the sales counter. "The gossipmongers were in full swarm today, better not go near the beehive."

"Still recasting you as Ophelia, I guess?" He dropped the box in front of the New Music Display, and watched as Beca sat on the counter to watch him.

"Like you wouldn't believe."

As he bent down to gather a stack, he asked "Hey, could you go round back and get the Bieber box?"

"Um…no. Why are we even going to sell that shit?"

"Money that's why," he said. "Please Beca, the tweeners are depending on you."

With a huff, she climbed off the counter and headed to the back. Just as the front door bell chimed-in a customer.

"Well hello, Miss Beale. What can we help you with today?" Jesse asked as he dropped what he was doing to help.

"Hey Jesse, I was just stopping in for your musical expertise," she said. Chloe Beale, the young 6th grade Language Arts Teacher at Barden Middle School was a frequent customer at the shop. Most days she came in to browse for herself and others, like today, were for classroom purposes. "I'm about to start a poetry unit with my kids, and I was wondering if I could get some suggestions on records with extended metaphors or some type of lyrical device related to poetry."

Both the guys look at each other for a moment, neither doing particularly well in Ms. McDouglas' 6th grade poetry unit.

"Um…let me consult my other employee for one moment" Jesse said running to the stock room doorway to peak into the back. Beca was just outside trying to pick up too many boxes at once.

"Beca" he called in what should have been a whisper.

"Huh?" She came in, hands full, kicking the door shut behind her.

"We have a customer in here, a teacher. She wants to know some music for teaching poetry. Something about a metaphor. Help me please" he begged. He knew Beca was the more poetically inclined, and well read. Beca had been studied Literature in her brief college career. She dropped the boxes in defeat with a huff.

"Fine, but I refuse to put this on the Palace's music racks." She held up an album with Justin Bieber's airbrushed face on the cover.

"Fine, fine but look please be nice to this customer. She is a regular and nice and we like her business" he said afraid of what might happen. Beca peeked out of the doorway to see who exactly the customer was.

"Holy shit, No" she whispered frantically to him. She jolted herself against the wall hiding herself from the line of sight even though no one could see inside the stock room. "Do you know who that is?"

She peeked again. Chloe was even more beautiful then she remembered. The long curls she remembered as being blonde were now an red. God, she had been so obsessed with that hair, and now it seemed as though she fell into that same trance once again. She was no longer the young girl she knew from years ago, she was a stunning woman. Her curves silkened and flowed down her whole body. Most of all, Beca was forever bewitched by those big, blue eyes that danced over her AP Lit papers in 10th grade, that smiled at witty comments she had made to her sister, that drowned in sorrow as she sat on the kitchen counter recalling her then boyfriends betrayal. Every emotion of her past flooded her chest, filling her lungs with memories that made it hard to breath. She was the unattainable woman. Chloe was her sister's best friend, future maid of honor, and childhood side kick. Chloe was the one thing Beca knew she could and would never have.

"I can't go out there, Jesse. I won't ever be sarcastic to the customers ever again if you just let me pass on this one."

Jesse noted the fear in her eyes. "Its just Chloe Beale. We went to high school with her. She's like the nicest person ever. Are you forgetting you sister's best friend and maid of honor?" he asked disbelievingly.

She yanked Jesse down by the front of his shirt. "I know who the hell she is. I think you're the one who is forgetting that I've been in love with her since I was six," she let go of his shirt.

"I thought maybe that had gone away," he said sheepishly. "Guess I was wrong, now I owe Benji five bucks."

"You made a bet about me?" she asked in disbelief at her friends' actions.

"Yeah, and I am gonna make one now too," Jesse said as he leaned down to eye level. "I bet you don't have the balls to go out there and talk to her."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. There was no way she could turn down a bet from Jesse. But at what cost, so she could awkwardly walk out and embarrass herself in front of her unrequited love.

"Dammit, I hate you," she said as she walked out of the store room fuming. And it was this anger that made her keep her cool as she approached Chloe.

"Hi Chloe," she said shyly to Chloe back as she was looking through the used albums on the rack. In what seemed like slow motion, Chloe turned her way, hair flowing around as she turned her head.

"Beca," she said a little shocked to see her best friend's little sister standing before her. Then all of a sudden Beca was enveloped by red and a soft squeeze of a hug. "I heard you were back but I just wasn't expecting to see you here."

"Yeah, word does get around shockingly fast here, doesn't it," she said rolling her eyes. "So Jesse tells me you need some help?"

"Yeah, I'm working on a poetry unit, and I was wondering if there were any albums that had good examples of poetic language."

Beca spent an hour talking to her about albums that would help her with her unit and another hour just catching up until she decided on a few records. It was only when she left that Beca could finally catch her breath.

"I'm in so much fucking trouble." She said to no one in particular.

The last thing Beca wanted to do when she got home that night was have dinner with her parents.

"How was work today, honey," her mother asked as she scooped beans out of a serving dish onto her plate.

"Wally played The Cure all day. It was a blast," she said sarcastically. "Oh, and the old ladies at the grocery store were talking about me again."

"Well, honey, people talk," she said as she sipped her white wine leaving a lipstick print on her glass. "Especially when you do something dramatic like you did." My father sighed at this but did not speak.

Beca cleared my throat. "Chloe came in today."

"Chloe. Oh bless, is she still using all that music stuff in her English class again," my mother said shaking her head.

"I think its kind of a brilliant idea. Most kids listen to music, don't they" she said.

"Why can't they read a book in these classes? When I was young, they had us reading Dickinson and that Hemingway fellow, didn't they Bob?" My dad looked at her and nodded absent mindedly.

There was no point in ever arguing with this women, but for some reason her attack on Chloe got to me.

"Well what would you have her do mom? When you were in school they didn't pack in the classes to over thirty kids and they had enough copies of Tale of Two Cities. She is being creative with what she has. If Mr. Cranton was like her maybe I would have done better in my English classes."

"Oh are you talking about the class where you threw your test into the trash," she challenged. Beca continued the stare down until finally relenting and asking to go back to my room. She may have won this battle, but she would not win the war.

It was while she was washing the dishes that everything started to sink in. She was back home, in her old room, washing dishes, listening to her mother's nagging and that made her feel as though she was in a jail cell again. The worst and best part of her sentence here was seeing Chloe again. The sight of the red head brought the annoying butterflies back like a stomach ache. It was at that moment that she realized that nothing had changed. She was still that same awkward and sarcastic girl from high school.


	2. I Feel It All

It wasn't even a full week before Chloe was back at the shop, this time wanting to take Beca to lunch.

"So how have you been," she asked squeezing lemon into her water. They were sitting outside on the patio of a small restaurant near the city square. "You look good by the way."

"Thanks." She could feel heat creep up on her cheeks. "I've been feeling good. Things are good." It was the truth, things were good for her. Her medication was finally regulated. And the weight she'd lost in the hospital was beginning to fill out her thin frame again.

"Well you look it. Your smile is even better than I remember." Now it was Chloe's turn to blush.

Beca cleared her throat.

"How is the poetry unit going?"

"Really great." Her face light up at the thought of her class. "The kids seem to love the music you picked out."

"Maybe sometime, I could help you pick out some records for yourself."

Chloe smiled at this.

"I would love that."

It wasn't till the waiter brought their food that she brought up the wedding.

"Are you excited about the wedding? Being maid of honor and all," Beca asked.

"I am, but you know, Aubrey and I just haven't been as close as we used to, so it'll be different."

"You guys have always been inseparable. When she gets out of law school, maybe things will get better," Beca said as she ate a French fry. "She and I on the other hand will never be close."

"I don't get why you guys don't get along. I would have loved to have a sister."

"You can have mine."

When she got back to the shop, the boys were sitting on the counter eating pizza, and obviously got no work done while she was gone.

"How was your date," Jesse asked as he folded a slice and ate it crust first.

"It wasn't a date," she countered as she put her bag up behind the counter. "You know you're eating that wrong."

"She asked to take you to lunch, therefore it was a date," Benji chimed in.

"Did she pay?"

"Yes, she wouldn't let me."

"Yeah, thats a date," Jesse said as he finished eating and wiped his hands on the sides of his jeans.

"There were no romantic intentions involved."

"Or were there. The girl barely made it two days without needing to see you again."

"Its called catching up," Beca replied as she got back to stacking CDs.

"Whatever you say, Juliet" Jesse quipped.

Chloe was the only thing on her mind that afternoon Beca at her her psychiatrist, Dr. Patel.

"How has the Abilify been working out for you?"

"I think the this one is working good. I'm not having any aggression, which is good."

Dr. Patel sat in his big blue chair across from Beca.

"Any stressful situations you want to tell me about."

"Other than wanting to kill my mother, nope…" Beca quipped with a smile that faded at the thought of Chloe. "Actually, there is something going on. Theres this person, who I haven't seen in forever, I think is back in my life. I get these stomach aches and fluttering around this person."

"You have feelings for this person," he said more than asked.

"I guess I do." Beca sighed. "I don't know what to do about it though."

"Make it simple you have feelings for this person, so try to win them over."

"They might not be appropriate feelings. This person is my sister's best friend and a girl."

"I say don't make your life so complicated, do what feels right."


	3. Young Blood

"Luke and I were thinking about St. Lucia for a honeymoon," Aubrey said as she squeezed her fiance's hand at the dinner table. Beca's sister and her fiance were gracing the Mitchell house with their presence tonight at dinner.

"You know your father and I went there for our third anniversary. The water was beautiful, but I'm sure you'll love any destination as long as you're together," Mrs. Mitchell said. "Right, honey?" Mr. Mitchell just nodded and continued to cut his steak.

Aubrey looked across the table at Beca.

"So how is the record shop thing you are doing now," Aubrey asked flippantly. Beca dropped her fork onto the plate.

"Thing? Really," she said. "It's a job not a thing."

"Beca plans on going back to school as soon as the semester starts up again," her mother insisted.

"Mom, we've been through this, I'm not going back," Beca said. "I'm focusing on my music right now. I'm not like Aubrey. I'm not gonna go to law school or have some highfalutin job."

Conversation died at that moment, and the only noise to be heard was her father continuing to cut his steak.

"So what was it like in the loony bin, anyway," Aubrey asked.

"It was just like staying over at your place," she bit back.

As she excused herself from the table, she made her escape to the living room where she collapsed on the couch and glanced at the fireplace mantle with two pictures the first picture was of her sister in her acapella uniform from high school. Next to it was a picture of Beca holding up a small blue ribbon. It was a writing award she had won in tenth grade. She'd always had a knack for writing and music. This was how she ended up in a senior AP English Lit class with Chloe when she was only 16. High school was an especially lonely place for her.

It was the first day of tenth grade and Beca was in a horrible mood. She scowled as the girls in front of her squealed in excitement as if they hadn't seen each other at Amy's party last Friday. She was annoyed at the jocks that needed to give each other special hand shakes in the middle of the walkway and the band kids lugging their instruments down the hallway. Most of all she was fuming at the sight of Tom leaning on her new locker flirting with Chloe.

"Hey, Beca," Chloe said brightly.

"Hey, Chloe." She turned to Tom. "Do you mind? This is my locker."

"We're locker neighbors this year. Aubrey is going to be so jealous," she said as she grabbed the hand Beca was using to hold her class schedule and moved next to the shorter girl so she could see it. "Let me see who you have."

Beca flushed at the feel of Chloe's warm hand covering her own.

"Chloe, I'm gonna go now," Tom said expectantly.

Chloe just nodded dismissively without looking up.

"Oh, AP English Lit. We have a class together," she said barely noticing that Tom had stomped off down the hall. "This is going to be a pretty awesome senior year. I can't believe you're in AP English Lit already. Aubrey never told me you were a wiz kid."

"Well, Aubrey is too busy talking about acapella to think of anything else."

"Be nice," she said with a mock glare. "We have a chance at State this year…you should try out."

"Yeah, too bad I can't sing."

When Beca got home from school, she headed straight to the shower because at lunch, Tom "accidentally" spilt grape soda down her shirt. She didn't even realize she was singing until the shower curtain was ripped opened. It was Chloe.

"Dude, I'm in the shower," she said trying to cover herself.

"You _can _sing."

"Do you have any idea what person space is," she said reaching desperately for her towel. "What are you even doing here?"

"I came home with Aubrey, and I needed to pee," she said. "But you have to try out now. Will you, please? For me?"

And that was how she found herself sitting on stage making a fool of herself. All for a girl.

"That was great, Beca," Chloe said. She was sitting at a long table with Aubrey, who was silently scribbling furiously on her notepad. Aubrey sighed.

"Next!"

Beca got up and left the stage.

"She was really good Aubrey, we should give her a chance," Chloe insisted.

"Chloe, she has a bad attitude like all the time. My sister and I don't get along. That's one thing that doesn't change. She'll going to ruin acapella for me."

"C'mon Bree, you know thats not true," Chloe replied softly.

"What are you on her side now—"

"I'm not on anyone's side. I just think you should give her a chance for once."

"I refuse to lose you to Beca."

"You're not losing me—I just…I always wished I had a sister, and it sucks to see you guys at odds all the time. Maybe this will bring you guys together."

"Chloe, I think of you as my sister. I love you like a sister, but that sarcastic hobbit," she pointed toward the door "will make my senior year miserable if we let her in the group."

"Fine, we'll go with Amy instead."


End file.
